It began as a joke. The project was meant to get the team acquainted with developing a 3D game before moving on to something more serious. Once the trailer was released, though, Untitled Goose Game became one of those darling indie games that people couldn't seem to get enough of. Even with no new information released, the fervor about a goose only grew with time, while the announcement that the game would first find a console home on the Nintendo Switch was music to the ears of those who didn't own a good PC. Now that it has finally been released, players are happy to know that the game has indeed lived up to the hype.

There isn't much that can be said of the game's premise beyond what the advertising tagline has already laid out for people. It is a lovely day in a small English village, and everyone is going about their business in relative peace. You are a goose with a personal mission to fulfill. Before doing that, you decide to be a giant bother to every villager you meet.

To be clear, you're just a normal everyday goose. You waddle everywhere you go, and you can skim small bodies of water. You can lower your head, extend your wings, and use your beak to manipulate everything around you, but you can't fly. Most importantly, you can honk. Without any super powers or other abnormal abilities, this is one of the more normal characters you'll ever play as in a game.

For the most part, you'll use your abilities to make everyone's lives miserable, a task that is easily accomplished by the fact that you can interact with just about everything around you. Squiggly lines appear near everything you can manipulate, and that means doing things like snatching objects, dragging heavier ones around the world, or simply turning knobs and hitting switches. Even with the village split up into small segments, there's plenty that you can do to cause mischief. You can throw a bag of potting soil into a nearby lake or untie a kid's shoelaces. You can take cricket bats and place them in other people's yards, or you can take the silverware from a restaurant and throw it into a box, or you could scatter tomatoes all over the place.

For progress, Untitled Goose Game gives you a list of things you need to do to gain access to the rest of the village. As an example, getting into the opening level in the garden may be a simple task, as will finding a way to get the gardener wet. Creating a picnic will be more challenging, and trying to get the gardener to wear a new hat might prove tricky. Each place gives you roughly six objectives to complete, but you only need to do five of them for the area's final objective to pop up. In this case, it's trying to get the gardener to hammer his thumb. Do this, and the passage to the new area opens up, and you'll be able to inflict more chaos on new, unsuspecting people.

As you can tell from the above description, the game essentially focuses on perhaps one of the more appealing things about the Grand Theft Auto series: creating mayhem. The main difference is that nothing you do can be deemed dangerous or malicious. No one dies or gets seriously injured. Hammering the thumb is probably the most violent thing, and everything that gets done feels more like a mean prank than something outright terrible. As a result, the mean-spirited acts done by the goose are relatively safe for both kids and those averse to the violence seen in other titles.

The other appealing aspect of the game is how you aren't punished for failure. Get caught by almost anyone, and you'll simply be shooed away while they try to fix your messes. Even if you get close to them, the only thing that'll happen to the goose is he'll spread his wings and automatically move away before you regain control. Objectives only get reset if you break something, and with so few objectives needing a lengthy setup, there's less frustration when something goes awry. Like the mayhem itself, this makes the title perfect for both kids and those who hate severe punishments for failure.

The main questline can be finished in roughly three hours, a running time that will seem very short for fans who want to do more. There is an argument that can be made for this being the perfect length, since an overly long journey with the goose can wear thin, but for those looking for more, the game has another set of objectives that spans multiple areas simultaneously. For example, you can collect all of the flowers in every area and find a basket to put them in, or you can lead the gardener to the town square so he can buy back his trowel. There's also the opportunity to try and speed-run all of the primary objectives in each area before you hear the church bells ring. While this doesn't unlock anything special, it gives you more to do if you can't think of anything yourselves.

Aside from the core gameplay, part of the game's charm is in its pleasant presentation. The title is bathed in pastel colors, and every character you meet is drawn rather simply. Except for the lack of facial features, like eyes or a mouth, they look like they're all taken from a children's book. The same goes for the environments, which look very simple but colorful and recognizable, so it is immediately a welcoming place. Meanwhile, the piano-filled soundtrack does a good job of making the experience relaxing yet madcap, without putting things into a nervous frenzy. The change between moods is smooth, and every piece of the track feels right, whether you're running away with someone's pipe or just observing the environment. You also can't help but appreciate the little things that go into the effects, like the sounds of the honks when carrying a bottle or speaking through a walkie-talkie.

Untitled Goose Game is a gem that hits all the right marks. There's some real appeal in using an otherwise innocuous animal sowing chaos in a sleepy village, and it helps that the results aren't violent at all. The game's short length keeps the experience from wearing thin, but there's enough here to keep you busy. With a pleasant presentation, Untitled Goose Game is a title where you'll both cherish the initial experience and enjoy showing it off to friends to see their reactions.

Score: 9.0/10